Posted by Kromey at 2:04pm Oct 14 '10Okay, in my novel that I'm writing for NaNoWriMo (see my sister's thread below this one), there are a couple of different things going on.
First off, there's the genetic aberrations. Without going into too much detail here (since this isn't the bit I'm having trouble with), science has finally found a way to design the genetic makeup of a couple's child, and not merely picking which traits of the parents to pass on. Unfortunately, these new genes are somewhat unstable, and tend to break down during meiosis; this means that if a genetically designed parent has a natural (i.e. not genetically manipulated) child, there is a high probability that that child will be deformed due to genetic mutation. Those with obvious visible mutations are called "abnormals" and ostracized completely from society, while those with non-obvious mutations are called "cryptids" and live in constant fear of being discovered; if found out, cryptids cannot find a home among "normal" society, nor even among the sub-societies formed by the abnormals -- they are completely ex-communicated and shut off on their own.
Anyway, that's not the part that I need help with. This is:
Nanotechnology has risen to the point where it is possible to give someone (who can afford the high price tag, naturally) an injection of medical nanobots, which will live within their body repairing damage at a cellular level as it occurs and granting their hosts long lives and superb health. While individually a nanobot doesn't possess the computing power to calculate π beyond 3 decimals, they are able to use their host's nervous system as an antenna to facilitate their own wireless communications with each other, and networked together in sufficient numbers they possess ample intelligence to detect, diagnose, and repair problems within the body.
However, from time-to-time a glitch in the programming causes the nanobots to go a little overboard: They become so zealous in their drive to preserve their host's life that, upon the death of their host, they will kick into overdrive, sensing a critical disaster, and will in fact animate the corpse into a shambling semblance of life. In effect, where viruses, radiation, and black magic have given rise to zombies in the past, now technology has achieved the same thing.
Now, here's where I'm stuck: These "grays" (called such because the nanobots, in their zeal, have replicated so much as to become so dense that the body's blood is now a thick, gray paste, which also gives the skin a distinct gray hue) need to be dangerous. It's not sufficient that they are simply scary because ol' Uncle Jim is now up and walking around despite having been dead until moments ago. They need to be dangerous.
I already have decided that the gray paste that is a gray's blood is capable of transmitting the "infection" in the same way as a computer virus -- if any of the nanobots from a gray get into the body of another person who has normal nanobots, that person suffers a very rapid, very painful transformation into a gray; get those infected nanobots into a person without their own nanobots, and the transformation takes a lot longer.
So there's the risk of dead ol' Uncle Jim infecting others, but if he's just shambling about he's not really all that dangerous -- just stay back until the specialized police units arrive and deal with him. Not so dangerous, and whole lot less scary than zombies trying to eat your brains or at least just bite you and turn you into one of them.
Currently, I have these grays motivated by reproduction: They want to increase their numbers. See, while normally the nanobots rely upon the body's nervous system to act as an antenna for their wireless communications and cannot transmit any further than within their own host, the sheer volume of nanobots within a gray makes them capable of longer distance communication, although still rather short range -- a few dozen yards, tops. However, this does mean that grays within range can network with each other and improve their collective intelligence. They also know that the more of them there are, the more intelligent they will become.
But I don't really like that. Suddenly we've gone from a programming glitch that causes nanobots designed to prevent harm not recognizing that their host is dead and their job is complete, to nanobots bent on attacking and killing human beings for their own parasitic reproduction. That doesn't make sense to me, not really, although at the same time it does -- anyone who has dealt with complex interactions, especially in the realm of "swarm intelligence" (epitomized by these nanobots), is well aware of the phenomenon of "emergent behavior", where a complex system will begin to exhibit behavior completely independent of its design parameters.
So it's a workable plot point, but I still don't like it -- I would some kind of justification that fits better with the original design of the nanobots to preserve their host's health, and is more in line with the glitch causing them to fail to recognize that their host is dead.
Now, ignoring this hole for a moment, there's another step up: As the grays increase in number and intelligence, at some point they cross the invisible threshold and become a fully sentient hive mind. At this point, they make the choice to stop attacking humans, and deliberately seek out uninhabited areas where they can live without interference from humans.
But this is the other plot hole -- what do these hives do? What is their raison d'être? What motivates their day-to-day activities? What are their day-to-day activities?
It's too easy at this point to turn these hives into the Borg Collective and say they want to replace human society with their own by "assimilating" everyone. I don't like that, and it doesn't fit with the plot of my story, in which a former police officer in a specialized anti-gray unit discovers a gray hive and leads a social revolution seeking equal rights and protections for grays, abnormals, and cryptids alike.
So the hives I want to be peaceful, to have a "leave us alone, and we'll leave you alone" mentality. But that's a really jarring shift from the individual/small group grays that actively seek out and infect human beings for their own reproductive needs.
I'm just not happy with how things are shaping up right now with the motivations of the grays at different "levels" of hive intelligence. I need help. HELP!
First off, there's the genetic aberrations. Without going into too much detail here (since this isn't the bit I'm having trouble with), science has finally found a way to design the genetic makeup of a couple's child, and not merely picking which traits of the parents to pass on. Unfortunately, these new genes are somewhat unstable, and tend to break down during meiosis; this means that if a genetically designed parent has a natural (i.e. not genetically manipulated) child, there is a high probability that that child will be deformed due to genetic mutation. Those with obvious visible mutations are called "abnormals" and ostracized completely from society, while those with non-obvious mutations are called "cryptids" and live in constant fear of being discovered; if found out, cryptids cannot find a home among "normal" society, nor even among the sub-societies formed by the abnormals -- they are completely ex-communicated and shut off on their own.
Anyway, that's not the part that I need help with. This is:
Nanotechnology has risen to the point where it is possible to give someone (who can afford the high price tag, naturally) an injection of medical nanobots, which will live within their body repairing damage at a cellular level as it occurs and granting their hosts long lives and superb health. While individually a nanobot doesn't possess the computing power to calculate π beyond 3 decimals, they are able to use their host's nervous system as an antenna to facilitate their own wireless communications with each other, and networked together in sufficient numbers they possess ample intelligence to detect, diagnose, and repair problems within the body.
However, from time-to-time a glitch in the programming causes the nanobots to go a little overboard: They become so zealous in their drive to preserve their host's life that, upon the death of their host, they will kick into overdrive, sensing a critical disaster, and will in fact animate the corpse into a shambling semblance of life. In effect, where viruses, radiation, and black magic have given rise to zombies in the past, now technology has achieved the same thing.
Now, here's where I'm stuck: These "grays" (called such because the nanobots, in their zeal, have replicated so much as to become so dense that the body's blood is now a thick, gray paste, which also gives the skin a distinct gray hue) need to be dangerous. It's not sufficient that they are simply scary because ol' Uncle Jim is now up and walking around despite having been dead until moments ago. They need to be dangerous.
I already have decided that the gray paste that is a gray's blood is capable of transmitting the "infection" in the same way as a computer virus -- if any of the nanobots from a gray get into the body of another person who has normal nanobots, that person suffers a very rapid, very painful transformation into a gray; get those infected nanobots into a person without their own nanobots, and the transformation takes a lot longer.
So there's the risk of dead ol' Uncle Jim infecting others, but if he's just shambling about he's not really all that dangerous -- just stay back until the specialized police units arrive and deal with him. Not so dangerous, and whole lot less scary than zombies trying to eat your brains or at least just bite you and turn you into one of them.
Currently, I have these grays motivated by reproduction: They want to increase their numbers. See, while normally the nanobots rely upon the body's nervous system to act as an antenna for their wireless communications and cannot transmit any further than within their own host, the sheer volume of nanobots within a gray makes them capable of longer distance communication, although still rather short range -- a few dozen yards, tops. However, this does mean that grays within range can network with each other and improve their collective intelligence. They also know that the more of them there are, the more intelligent they will become.
But I don't really like that. Suddenly we've gone from a programming glitch that causes nanobots designed to prevent harm not recognizing that their host is dead and their job is complete, to nanobots bent on attacking and killing human beings for their own parasitic reproduction. That doesn't make sense to me, not really, although at the same time it does -- anyone who has dealt with complex interactions, especially in the realm of "swarm intelligence" (epitomized by these nanobots), is well aware of the phenomenon of "emergent behavior", where a complex system will begin to exhibit behavior completely independent of its design parameters.
So it's a workable plot point, but I still don't like it -- I would some kind of justification that fits better with the original design of the nanobots to preserve their host's health, and is more in line with the glitch causing them to fail to recognize that their host is dead.
Now, ignoring this hole for a moment, there's another step up: As the grays increase in number and intelligence, at some point they cross the invisible threshold and become a fully sentient hive mind. At this point, they make the choice to stop attacking humans, and deliberately seek out uninhabited areas where they can live without interference from humans.
But this is the other plot hole -- what do these hives do? What is their raison d'être? What motivates their day-to-day activities? What are their day-to-day activities?
It's too easy at this point to turn these hives into the Borg Collective and say they want to replace human society with their own by "assimilating" everyone. I don't like that, and it doesn't fit with the plot of my story, in which a former police officer in a specialized anti-gray unit discovers a gray hive and leads a social revolution seeking equal rights and protections for grays, abnormals, and cryptids alike.
So the hives I want to be peaceful, to have a "leave us alone, and we'll leave you alone" mentality. But that's a really jarring shift from the individual/small group grays that actively seek out and infect human beings for their own reproductive needs.
I'm just not happy with how things are shaping up right now with the motivations of the grays at different "levels" of hive intelligence. I need help. HELP!
Plot help needed! - Kromey